Mary’s Obedience as an Example of Mature Christian Discipleship

Our Lady of Tenderness:

Mary’s Obedience as an Example of Mature Christian Discipleship. 

The word obedience comes from the root audire that means to hear. Obedience in its essence is listening. To be obedient then is to listen to God’s call to action in our lives. Mary is a significant role model of mature Christian discipleship. She can be an inspiration to all Christians, men, women, young, old, lay and ordained. As we reflect during this service on her costly, yet generous response to God’s call, may we be inspired to respond to God anew and be renewed in our calling. 

In many ways Mary is a misunderstood and neglected character. At first Mary seems passive and submissive, hidden in the background for most of her life, except for when she bore the Christ. She seems rather like a nativity figure that people stash away each year after the Christmas rush- needful for a while but soon forgotten. 

However when the angel Gabriel announced a heaven endowed mission to her, he first explained that she had found favour with God- God had examined her and known her heart as the psalmist described- God knew everything about Mary and she had found favour with God. So when Mary first appeared on the scene, though only a young adolescent, she had already developed an exceptional spirituality and character. 

Mary responded at first with perplexity and enquiry to the angel’s greeting before making her full-hearted and generous ‘yes’ to God’s mysterious call. Her response was not passive or meek but a bold, intelligent and free response. She listened to God’s call. She chose to Obey God. The crucial concept is that Mary chose. She could have refused, she could have cooperated but complained or bailed out later when mothering Jesus became difficult. But with a thinking mind and a sensitive heart she chose a path that yielded both great joy and deep pain. She willingly participated and obeyed for all of her days. 

Consequently there are important lessons that Mary’s life can teach us. Generally obedience to God is a maligned concept. Obedience can be considered a weak-willed act, thrust upon us by a stern controller who wants to take away what we treasure and keep us miserable. But based upon Mary’s life we can view obedience to God as the gateway to intimacy with God, freedom from sin and the route to inner peace. Obedience draws us into God’s heart, it teaches us righteousness; it helps us to know more of God and enables us to fulfil our potential as people. 

I’d like you to reflect for a moment on your response to God’s call in your life. Not God’s call to Christians in general but to you in particular. Does it take you by surprise? Does God’s call cause you perplexity? Are you willing to respond as Mary did, will you respond with the words “yes Lord I am your servant. May it be as you have said.” 

Please say with me prayer 1 on the service sheet. 

Holy God,
You called Mary and she was not afraid to question your call,
Yet still she made her yes freely and wholeheartedly.
Help us to discern your call in the midst of our lives,
And to be unafraid to ponder and question it,
So that we may be ready to give our yes and to obey you with all our heart, mind and strength. 

Following the encounter with the angel Mary went with great haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth. After the meeting with divine mystery, both of them were fearful and both of them blessed, she needed the comfort and strengthening of a trusted human companion. Each shared with the other the extraordinary news of God’s work in her own life. Each affirmed in the other what God had begun. Each supported the other for the unknown labour and challenge that lay ahead. (Call to priesthood- trusted friend)

I’d like us to reflect for a moment on those who share and support your work for God. Who listens to you when you need to ponder God’s calling and activity in your life? Who shares the joy of responding to God’s call with you? Who strengthens and supports you as you seek to be faithful to God’s call?

Let us say prayer 2 together on the service sheet.

Holy God,
You gave Mary a wise and loving companion,
To support her as she responded and chose to be obedient to your call.
Thank you for those who share and support us in our work for you.
Help us to be to others a wise and loving companion,
Who recognises God at work in their lives and help to bring this new work to birth. 

As we approach Christmas and think of Mary’s obedience we need to recognise that this was the beginning and not a one off act. Mary’s obedience continued even through the most difficult of time as she stood under the cross and watched Jesus die. She experienced powerlessness, unable to save or help or even to touch him. All she could do was to be there, refusing to abandon him, watching and waiting until the bitter end. The challenge at this moment was to give up her child to death, allowing him to be torn from her, to separate from her once and for all. She had to release him, to give him back to the one from whom he came. It is interesting that the word hail (chaire) in the Greek can be translated as be glad and was the same word used by Jesus to greet the women at the empty tomb some thirty odd years later. 

I want you to reflect upon ways you may have experienced a ministry of powerless watching and waiting. How did this communicate the presence of God? How did God act through you? What is God calling you to do? Can you be obedient to God’s will even in challenging times? 

Mary’s last mention in the bible is in the Acts of the Apostles. Although Mary receives only the briefest of mentions in acts her presence in the upper room at Pentecost is significant. Her obedience to God and her trust in Jesus as God’s son continues, even though she had been through the most traumatic of experiences in seeing her son die. In the upper room Mary is watching and waiting, remembering and praying. She waits in hope and expectancy for the coming of the Holy Spirit. She prays in faithfulness for God’s gift to be given. She remembers all that God has given and promised in Jesus. 

Prayer 3

Holy God,
You called Mary in the upper room to a ministry of waiting, praying and remembering.
Teach us to wait for the coming of your spirit.
Teach us to pray for the coming of your kingdom.
Teach us to hold fast to the memory of all you have given
And all you have promised to deliver as we work with you for the future of the world.

Prayer 4

Hail Mary,
Full of Grace,
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary,
Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now,
and at the hour of death.

Amen.

My prayer for you this Christmas is that you will allow the example of Mary’s obedience to be a blessing in your life and that like Mary you will be ever pointing towards the Christ we are called to serve. I Wish you a very happy and blessed Christmas.

The ideas and some text in this sermon are based upon the original ideas and liturgy by Nicola Slee Magnet.

Further Reading

Cantalamessa, R (1992) Mary: Mirror of the Church Liturgical Press
Pelkian, J (1998) Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture Yale UP
*Slee, N (2007) The Book of Mary SPCK
Williams, R. (2002) Ponder These Things: Praying with Icons of the Virgin
Canterbury Press

Some Congregants asked about poems- not exactly a poem but thought provoking.

Advent calendar

1. Learn again the season’s lessons:
2. Darkness. Tiredness. Tears.
3. Tenderness and memory.
4. Adult, driven by compulsive needs, let go.
5. Learn failure, self-acceptance.
6. Welcome laughter where it mingles with all things troubled and trembling.
7. Decide to do it differently.
8. Practise simplicity.
9. Make your choices with single-minded sincerity.
10. Rip up the round robin.
11. Declare a fast on enforced jollity.
12. Choose justice in place of sadness.
13. Clothe yourself in loving kindness.
14. Welcome the stranger – in yourself as well as in your neighbour.
15. Look for a neighbour where you’re not expecting.
16. Unwrap Christmas presents in the greetings of strangers: shoppers jostling you on the high street.
17. Let the TV news rouse you to tears.
18. Let tears take you to action for goodness.
19. Turn down the tinsel.
20. Put on silence.
21. Let the season drive you to chasteness.
22. Let darkness sow seeds of contemplation where they may blossom: a single flower of compassion.
23. Cynic in you, become a child again.
24. Teach yourself starry-eyed wonder.
25. Become pregnant with hope and longing.
26. Child in you, looking for the perfect gift, learn disappointment.
27. Find treasure the other side of discarded wrappers.
28. Walk the days and nights of December you’ve forgotten and now remember.
29. Welcome winter’s joys, its unspeakable sadnesses, God in straitened circumstances.
30. Bear the heart’s chill, sudden lurchings and unsettlings.
31. Let your prayer be for the ones who live in that place always.

Nicola Slee